Piranha

You never know when the nibbles may strike

Jaws only smaller, Piranha (1978) is a B movie that was directed by Joe Dante and like you have probably guessed, is about pesky carnivorous fish. (This film did for piranha what big J did for great whites). It wasn't the first horror I ever saw but its certainly one of the first five. And you know what? I like it! It has nice gory touches and has that 'small town Americana charm' like other old movies ive mentioned elsewhere on the Gutterbox. Its been remade twice, one in 1995 and more recently in 2010 in 3D and I must check them out sometime, though I highly doubt they are as good as the original.** Anyway, back to 1978.
Piranha starts with two teenagers skinny dipping in a deserted (they think) swimming pool, little knowing that the previous inhabitants of the pool were fish that love flesh. And the Army had been messing around with the piranha (they can't leave anything alone in B movies) with Operation Razortooth, making this fish even more ravenous. Uh oh. Notch up two dead teens and an insurance investigator named Maggie on the case to find out how they perished. (Bit of advice Mags, teens always die in horror films). She teams up with boozer Grogan and they end up draining the pool, letting loose hundreds of hungry piranha into the rivers. Oops! Enter a yelling Doctor Hoak who informs them of the mega boob they've just made. (The doc was in charge of the military operation).


He's feeling peckish

So off they go, saving children in summer camp and bugging the military to get the river system closed down which seems only fair as its their fault in the first place. A few scenes stand out for me: the part where Grogan drags his fishing chum from the rivers edge and we see his legs chewed down to the bone and the raft ride where pirahna attack and nibble on the ropes holding it together. Minor scenes in the great scheme of film granted but they stuck in my head all the same.
Piranha ends with a news repoter telling her viewers that theres nothing to fear because the waters have been cleared of hungry fish with sharp teeth but as she utters the words, we hear the ominous sound of the finny fiends making their way to the ocean. Presumably to keep Jaws company.

Check out the original trailer below


You can probably pick this movie up for pennies these days and Gutterbox recommends you do because while not being a classic in the usual sense of the word, it is a little gem to chill out with a few drinks. Also look out for the little creature dude at the beginning who peeps out from behind a few jars on a shelf in the army compound. I want one of those for a pet! Although he/she looks more like something from Star Wars than a horror flick.
Bit of trivia: Dr Hoak is played by Kevin McCarthy who appeared in over 200 films/television but will be remembered best for 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Gutterbox rating


** I watched Pirahna 3D last night and can confirm that it is garbage. Yes it has an abundance of near naked hotties and gyrating asses (by the way Kelly Brook is not as pretty in motion as she is in photographs) but even that cannot save this turgid mess of a film. Flush immediately down toilet.


Jawsome? No it really isn't.

They Live

Indeed they do. Near Swansea

Another big favourite of the Gutterbox, They Live (1988) was directed by John Carpenter and is a mix of horror and science fiction with a hefty dollop of dark humour thrown in. This movie is a classic and needs your attention like yesterday. Obey.
Okay let me fill your wine glass and give you the intel. John Nada (Roddy Piper) is drifting through America looking for work but he finds more than a job on his travels when he chances upon a box of....wait for it...sunglasses! But these are not your usual Gucci goggles, oh no. These glasses allow the wearer to not just look cool but see aliens (who look human without them) and read subliminal messages on billboards and newspapers, where the naked eye sees only adverts and news. Gulp! Those pesky space hopping fiends have duped us again. Will they ever stop? Well they'll have a fight on their hands because Nada likes to "chew bubblegum and kick ass." And he's famously all out of gum.
The film is basically a comment on money, greed and consumerism with humans willing to become aliens in exchange for big job promotions and lots of loot. Kinda like a galatic pact with the devil. Nada and his buddy Frank (Keith David) want none of it however and are disgusted with how easily folk sell out their own kind. (By the way the fight the pair have in an alley at the beginning is one of the best movie scraps EVER. You can almost feel the pain.)


Consume

With the police gunning for them (literally), John & Frank end up in an underground base (complete with cool airport type teleports) and its here they see the big picture. E.T. is using us! Cue more guns, clever watches and a double cross by sultry eyed alien collaborator Meg Foster who kills big Frank. Nada almost gets offed too but wins Meg's heart with a sneaky bullet fired into it. Romantic guy! He then destroys a broadcasting antenna disguised as a satellite dish that is holding us humans under a cosmic spell and the games up for the skull faced critters. Its also the end for our Johnny when he is plugged by a baddie in a whirlybird. Boo! *flips bird to alien*
But now the American public can see the truth and it all ends in whoops and cheers. And some poor sap discovering he is actually doinking a female alien.
They Live is super fun and were this site going to hand out gold stars, it would award this movie a bag filled to the brim of the shiny f**kers. Such is the delicious taste of its retro sauce, I could probably watch it on loop. There is a definate creepy vibe throughout courtesy of both hidden messages and those big shiny eyes of the skulled ones which if were real would read your every thought leaving you helpless. Thats what I get from them anyway and it never fails to send a shiver down my spine.
Then of course theres Nada's cheesy one liners not to mention the fact that it stars the great George 'Buck' Flower, who seemed to be in every single film made in the 1980s. He has one of those faces you instantly recognise but are not sure where from. Sadly the actor died in 2004. RIP Buck!
So a huge thumbs up from the Gutterbox then, and if you haven't seen this movie yet (and a lot haven't) head on over to Netflix and right your wrong. You'll thank me later over beers.

Gutterbox rating

Part Of The Collection

Quick peek at some of the classic 70/80s movies in the Gutterbox vaults.

Dinoshark

That drink was needed

So where do I begin with Dinoshark? I bought it a while ago but only last night had the heart to put it the player. (Blame the 'shandies'). I believe the film is regularly shown on the Syfy channel and to be quite honest they're welcome to it. Director Kevin O'Niell must have had better days. The only star of the show was Puerto Vallarta which positivelty glowed from the screen as I sat in muggy old Carmarthen with an envious look on my chops.
The movie starts with Dinoshark jr starting life in the nippy Arctic waters but fastfowrward a few years and the toothy critter seems to have got fed up being cold (I know how he feels) and relocated to Mexico where no doubt human flesh is tastier owing to Tequila.
Good guy Trace gets miffed when Dinoshark eats one of his friends and so begins a game of hunt the big fish and kill it dead. This is basically it. We don't even get a decent explanation of how the creature came to be. (Or if there was my brain seems to have stalled during it).
I like a bad film when its 'good' bad but I found nothing entertaining to this at all. Even the bikini clad babes were nothing special. Quick thought: why are the men and women in these cheap movies hot but not quite? They look like Christie Brinkley knock offs.

Check out this Gutterboxc clip for a taste of Dinoshark.


Do you see now the problem with Dinoshark? Its moments like the one in the above clip that make it such a big LOL. Also this monster is supposed to be the cross between a shark and dinosaur right? It should be a full force swimming machine capable of dealing with anything on the water with ease. Wrong! Dinoshark can't even crush a small sailing boat. I mean WHUT? Even Jaws managed to wreck boats and he wasn't half dinosaur.
A few other critcs have actually enjoyed this movie but they must have had some good acid or something because even after 9 pints of cider I saw nothing interesting happen in Dinoshark and when you consider the awesomness of such a beast its a very poor shout out.
And how is this hungry varmint killed in the end? A stab to it eye from a boat rocking about like a rodeo horse. That Trace is one helluva shot I will give him that. What I can't do is recommend Dinoshark. Stuck for something to watch? You DO have a better movie than this one in your collection. Skip this.


Gutterbox rating

Killer Klowns From Outer Space

In space nobody can eat ice cream

Killer Klowns From Outer Space is one of my favourite comedy horror movies of all time so I make no apology for slobbering praise all over it like a teenage lad and his first snog. I bloody well love this film, down to its oversized clown shoes. So there.
It was made in 1988 by the Chiodo brothers and has alien posing as clowns (complete with cool spaceship disguised as a circus tent) landing on earth to bring us their unique form of mayhem. Like stuffing folk into giant candyfloss cocoons, jabbing a straw in and drinking their blood. Eek!
Killer Klowns possesses a certain dark 'charm', also for a boy who wasn't a big clown fan in the first place, it just seemed to make it official ~ clowns are evil. Run from them!
Anyway after they arrive in a small town, the fun begins. Grisly fun including a biker getting his head punched clean off his shoulders by a 'baby' clown and another one turning his shadow puppet into a T-Rex, and having it eat a group of people waiting for a bus. I heart that scene.
They then kidnap (clown~nap?) the gorgeous Suzanne Snyder (my 80's babe crush) and whisk her off to the circus ship and encase her in a giant bubble. Poor Suzy!


My Klown figurine

Its then down to her boyfriend and her policeman ex (awkward) plus two ice cream sellers to track her down and save the world from clowny madness by getting into the circus tent space ship and battling a bad assed giant clown. Its not too difficult though because what with the smaller clowns thinking the ice cream van to be some kind of clown deity (think Popemobile), and one bop on daddy clowns red conk sending him into a thousand pieces and its job done.

Gutterbox rating

Class of Nuke 'Em High

Atomic high!

This was a find at a car boot (flea market) on sunday and another title for my ever growing 'Quid Club' (dvds for £1). Im considering it as a lucky find too because ive been on the look out for Class of Nuke 'Em High for a while now and its proved pretty elusive. (I suppose I could have found it easily online but thats not as fun as finding the dvd in the 'wild').
I rented this movie a bunch of times in the late 80's and im happy to report, it is still a blast all these years later.
Class of Nuke 'Em High was made in 1986 by cult B-movie team Troma Entertainment, and directed by Richard W. Haines and Lloyd Kaufman. Its a mix of horror and dark comedy, if you think Mad Max meets Return of the Living Dead then you wouldn't be far out.
The action revolves around the Tromaville High School which is within spitting distance of a nuclear power plant. Students and nuclear waste. What could possibly go wrong? Well quite a bit actually, especially if you figure in the schools motorcycle gang The Cretins. (A typical member is the lady in the pic below, complete with Hitler tash). The gang (who were once known as the 'Honour Society') start selling marijuana to fellow students, stuff that has been grown in radioactive goo. Lovely.
Obviously things begin to go downhill pretty darned quickly as pupils turn all kinds of mutant after smoking the toxic weed, and chaos reigns in Tromaville. The Cretins take over the school, hellbent on destryoing it, one poor lad sees his erection grow bigger than a hay bale. Oh and there is a monster covered in lethal spikes in the basement.
You know how its going end; old spikey kills the gang, then good student (himself a Hulklike mutie) treats the creature to a well aimed laser beam to the chops. Ends with the school in bits and the baddies dead. But in keeping with tradition to these type of movies, just before the credits roll a baby gunk monster pokes its head from the ruins as if to announce the sequel.


She shops with Avon

I like Class of Nuke 'Em High. Its fun and a perfect example of the bubblegum, switch-yer-brain-off movie that seemed to flood the video shops in the 1980's. Its all here from gratitious boob shots to horny students. I like The Cretins too, especially Gonzo with his oversized nose peircings and giant bone. Punk rock caveman! Oddly enough I never imagined the gang to be all that dangerous, just purely mad. Perfect mental hospital material.
If you've not seen Nuke 'Em, ignore the bad online reviews and try to get hold of a copy. You might be suprised at how much you enjoy it because its certainly not the steaming pile of garbage some would have you believe. There are dreadful creature feature B-movies out there but this isn't one of them.
Its worth a look if only to hear the worst rendition of the 'Star Spangled Banner'EVER. Shocking.

Gutterbox Rating

Nightmare In A Damaged Brain

Its a nightmare alright

Nightmare In A Damaged Brain (1981) was another movie I picked up for on my travels for just £1. It was directed by Romano Scavolini and while im not aware of his other work, I can say that this slab of horror was pretty dire. It was banned in Britain not long after release and a distributor who refused to edit a particularly grisly scene was thrown in jail for 18 months. Personally I would have left it banned because for all the blood it may have, its not really very good.
Quick synopsis then; George Tatum is mentally ill and plagued by terrible nightmares. He escapes from the psychiatric hospital and ends up wandering the streets. And seeing as he's pretty much a homocidal maniac, you'd want to be giving Georgie a wide berth indeed.
Tatum has been fed experimental drugs (aren't all drugs in these movies 'experimental'?) which seem to cure him of the violent hallucinations he suffers from. Alas these tablets stir up a psychopathic storm that engulfs him and so he begins murdering his way across the USA as he makes his way home to Florida to snuff out a family member.
Interesting to discover the film was made in 1981 because when I watched it a few weeks ago, I thought it looked like something that was knocked up in the early 1970s. Indeed it looked quite ropey in places and this is coming from someone who loves retro stuff!
Nightmare In A Damaged Brain (or Blood Splash as its known in some countries) might have a reputation for being one of the goriest slasher flicks ever committed to celuloid but quite frankly this means nothing when one of the words I could use to describe it is 'boring'. I relished seeing the end credits appear almost as much as I relish opening a fresh bottle of Jagermeister.
Anyone can make a film bloody, buckets of fake blood are not hard to get hold of afterall. Decent stories and scripts however are much harder to find and this film suffers because it lacks both. As I said, boring.

Gutterbox Rating